


that lines run backwards too

by fated_addiction



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Manga), Code Name: Sailor V
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:03:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Minako cares very little for patience. This is should surprise none of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that lines run backwards too

**Author's Note:**

> There are all sorts of wacky mentions of Sailor V in here. Things that happen when I subject myself to re-reads. For the usual suspects - all part of an on-going headcanon that Usagi, Mamoru, Minako, and Kunzite should double date. A lot.

Minako breaks the refrigerator door.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” she breathes, and Usagi gives into a laugh, kneeling next to her with a tool kit. The sound doesn’t quite reach the rest of her best friend’s face, but she merely stays with the fact that they’re already such a strange pair as it is.

They are both summer dresses and a coffee stain. She just decides she’s not going to talk about it. Mamoru is due back from the hospital. Minako already knows it’s not a good idea if she stays.

“It’s fine,” Usagi murmurs.

“Seriously though,” Minako says. “It’s not – I reacted stupidly. I mean – I _just_ – what the hell is he thinking? That’s a screwdriver, Usagi.”

The other woman rolls her eyes. “I’m not completely inept, you know.”

She can’t even watch her tear into the toolbox like it’s happened before. (It’s _happened_ before.) But Usagi’s already halfway into matching screws to wedges and changing the head of her tool.

Minako remembers why she’s really here.

 

 

-

 

 

They don’t forget Mamoru’s crystal.

Makoto makes a lot of dated fight club references. It’s what they do.

( _Minako_ does not forget – while they are all selfish in protecting Usagi, she wants to make sure, just like she did a thousand years ago, that the guy is going to hold his end up. This is non-negotiable.)

So she supposes they should have know. Mamoru is going to be _the_ king. His responsibilities are different, much different, and his skeletons are just the same; they all have too many threads to share. She just figured that she would have more time to deal with old habits and old names.

She never forgets Kunzite. Or _forgot_.

Her past self drove a hard bargain, after all.

 

 

-

 

 

“He can’t come _here_ ,” Minako explodes.

Usagi rolls her eyes. She’s standing, barefoot. Her wedding ring catches the light.

“This is my apartment, Mina.” She opens and closes the refrigerator door. They don’t talk about how Mamoru made the decision already. “It’s all right.”

“Is it?” She throws her hands up. “He could be homicidal –“

“He teaches kindergarten,” Usagi says dryly.

“Serial killers can teach kindergarten too, you know.”

The fourteen year old girl isn’t exactly _gone_ , but it’s still an unsettling thing to watch her move around in a space so simple. Usagi carries an inevitable grace. Her motions are too fluid and every now and then, if you catch her right, her fingers are skimming over her belly.

She presses a hand into her face. 

“Are you going to tell the others?” she asks.

Usagi pauses over the sink. “Yes,” she says. The faucet turns on.

“Usagi – ”

“I don’t know how this is going to work,” she murmurs. There’s another pause; Usagi and Mamoru have their own secrets that they are not privy too. She understands that much. “You know because you should know and because he wants and needs them to be a part of his life, just as much as I need you in mine. It’s not supposed to be easy. I’m not asking you to –”

Minako doesn’t need her to finish. There is this tightness in her throat. She pulls herself to the counter and then leans forward, wrapping her arms around Usagi’s waist. Her eyes are heavy and warm. She cannot remember the last time she’s cried – there was Ace. Then there wasn’t.

Her mouth presses into Usagi’s shoulder. Her best friend laughs a little.

Usagi’s fingers pass her knuckles.

“You’ll be okay,” she says.

“You’re way too calm about this,” she mumbles back.

Usagi snorts. “Someone has to be,” she shoots back and she turns her head, leaning against Minako. “All of you are insane,” she teases.

They don’t talk about it anymore. They will. But she doesn’t know else to say.

This is important too.

 

 

-

 

 

Mamoru finds her before she leaves for Paris.

Her mother is sick. Her father wants a divorce. Minako has a headache; she does not miss the Sailor V days. Nobody likes doing it alone.

“She talked to you,” she says into a suitcase.

Mamoru stands in her hallway. He doesn’t take his jacket.

“No,” he says ruefully. She cannot tell if he’s lying. “But this was coming, you know? I owe you that much, right?”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

She kicks her suitcase close. She can’t remember if Artemis is with Luna or at the temple. She stands and smoothes her hands against her hips. Mamoru’s eyes are dark. She could ask the round of questions; _his name_ tastes strange.

Her mouth opens and closes though. Her fingers press against her lips.

“What’s his name?”

“Do you want to know?” Mamoru is too calm.

“You let him near Usa-chan,” she snaps. Her eyes narrow and his darken. She flushes, her hands curling into fists. “Sorry,” she says. She’s not. “I just – does he remember much?”

He leans against the door. Even Mamoru has fallen to this larger than life _thing_ ; she doesn’t know what it is – the prince and princess are no longer the prince and princess. She keeps going over this in her head. The present is always more frightening than what it needs to be.

He’s always been this strange mix of untouchable and imposing. She trusts him because Usagi does and because Usagi loves him. They don’t see eye to eye, but they accept it – it’s all part of this, after all.

“It’s not my place to say,” he says.

Her eyes darken. “That’s _bullshit_ ,” she throws. “And you know it.”

Mamoru pushes away from the door. He stands a little taller. His shoulders are set back. His mouth falls into a line.

“I came for Usagi.”

Her mouth twists. “I figured.”

“I’m not asking for your approval either,” he says quietly. In her head, there is the prince and him standing tall, the first time he and Serenity are discovered. There is magic pulsing at the tips of her fingers. She wants her blade.

“I won’t kill him,” she says. “If that’s what _you’re_ asking.”

There is a strange, sad smile on his face. Mamoru’s hands slide into his jacket. He faces the door and she hears the sigh.

She is unforgiving, she wants to say. They all know. She is the one that is supposed to be the most unforgiving of them all. It’s the territory. It’s the responsibility. It’s what she’s long since accepted. Maybe it’s much more of a reality now, knowing that what’s to come is coming faster than they all need it to.

She thinks of Usagi and the broken refrigerator door.

Mamoru doesn’t turn.

“But he is,” he says.

 

 

-

 

 

This is how it happens –

(because it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen again, it’s going to happen _a lot_ and maybe, okay, she’s already resigned herself to this too because there’s too much that happened and duty and responsibility stay stronger than so many of her old, old friends)

She is dragging a suitcase to the curb. Her cab is late. Usagi’s, like, called twice or whatever; she and Mamoru aren’t really the best of best buds, but they agree on Usagi and that’s enough.

“Need help?”

She blinks. Her suitcase slips from her hand. It cracks, but doesn’t crash.

“No,” she hears herself say. “Unless you can pull a cab out of thin air?”

She is old. She is wise. She still tries and keeps the girl close. She doesn’t turn around – no, not yet. In her head, she starts to piece together a figure. His hair over his eyes. The stupid, long sharpness of his jaw. There should be a scar at his hip. From when he was a child – she wonders if it’s a birthmark in this life.

Minako forces a deep breath.

“Kindergarten,” she says.

She hears him shrug. “Kids,” he says back.

“You hated kids,” she says.

“My sister’s kids,” his voice is dry. “Monsters, the lot of them.”

“I remember,” she mutters and winces. It’s a lie and her fingers pull through her hair. Her nails twist in curls.

It’s how he takes her suitcase though. He straightens it over the sidewalk. It tips against her boots and then he’s close, maybe too close. Your mother’s _sick_ , she wants to scold herself and really, she’s halfway into a strange, awkward rendition of _your mother hates you this week_ – because really, Daddy and the divorce are so, so her fault.

Her mouth purses. She still can’t look at him.

“I can kill you where you stand,” she says easily.

“I would expect nothing less.” Her eyes strain under his voice. She remembers his hilt at her throat. “I’m a little surprised – ”

“That I haven’t?” she finishes.

“Yeah,” he says. There’s a change pitch – she should know. She still sings. “You are still you,” he says too.

This is how she looks at him.

 

 

She knows the difference.

(she doesn’t)

He stands a foot away, gripping her suitcase –

and it’s _his_ overcoat that is open, his sword missing, and honestly, Endymoin isn’t good enough for Serenity and Serenity can read right through your terrible attempts at political chivalry because she has _me_ and this is not about his mouth at all and how warm and heavy it is

\- and he is the strangest looking kindergarten teacher she’s ever seen, too handsome for his own good, and there is _life_ in his eyes, his eyes so impossibly bright that she doesn’t understand and wants to be angry, really, really angry because she’s spent the better part of her life missing someone who wasn’t supposed to be there and yet here, right now, he is.

Kunzite is here.

 

“You don’t have to come.” Then she slides on her sunglasses, too big for her face. “And you’re paying for the cab fare,” she tells him. “And it’s, like, _expensive_.”

He hands her a tea. There are two sugars in it. It writes itself into the paper cup.

“It’s summer break,” he says lightly, and the cab driver is staring at them through his mirror. She wonders if this is Usagi now. She cannot tell if he’s genuine or not. Her nerves are starting to pick at her.

“My mother hates me,” she mutters.

He laughs. “I doubt it,” he says, and it’s so not the thing to say. You don’t _know_ , she almost tells him.

She turns her gaze to the window though and keeps there. Her forehead presses against the glass. She holds her tea. She waits to feel nervous. It’s a strange feeling. She waits for the onslaught of memories too; they’re there.

They’ve always been there. Sometimes they come in pieces. Sometimes she remembers Ace and gets so, so _angry_ because there is nothing else to do and she never expected Kunzite back. This is – _was_ – a mistake she cannot afford.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” she says. 

“I’ll be here,” he says lightly.

“Kindergarten though – ” it’s abrupt and he laughs at her, “ – children and snot and pulling at your face?”

“They grow on you.”

She shakes her head. “More power to you, I guess.”

She does not know if he is waiting for her to say something more. It almost sends her into a mild panic (which is like the understatement of the year because everything in her is _raging_ and it’s pulling at her skin and bones, in her throat and at the real core of her own magic) but she keeps her cool. Venus keeps her cool. Minako loses herself to everything loud and bright. It’s a balance.

Her thumb sneaks underneath the lid of her tea. The cab driver takes a wide turn and her suitcase tips, hitting her hip and her purse.

“What do you remember?” she asks quietly.

The cab driver curses and turns the music up. She catches the line of Kunzite’s jaw in the window reflection. The fourteen year old girl remembers killing him.

He killed her first.

“I’m not ready for that.” His voice is heavy. She hears a crack. Her shoulders set back and she thinks about his bones.

“I’ll ask you again,” she says.

“I imagine so.”

Her eyes close. It’s only ten minutes. She needs an army for her mother. She’s sure she didn’t pack enough. She doesn’t know how long she’s staying this time around, but it’s not going to be long enough.

The airport will be wide and larger and she will feel too guilty about leaving Usagi and the other girls for this long. It’s in her throat now, after all. But she touches his wrist – arm, maybe – and it’s an accident. Or it’s a habit. She has a sinking feeling that it’s a little bit of both.

“Wake me when we get there,” she says.

He stays quiet.

 

 

-

 

 

Her mother calls her father’s new girlfriend a gold digger.

Minako rolls her eyes. “It’ll be a new one next week,” she says, and buys Rei a box of chocolates and Makoto a new journal.

The doctor’s bill is obscene and Paris is written into the backdrop of a hotel, complete with a concierge that calls her simply _darling_. She doesn’t want to talk about how her mother is losing all her hair and how she knows her next trip to Paris is not going to be a good trip. There will be relief and she’ll probably feel guiltier than she wants to be.

Usagi still calls and Minako’s heart is in her throat.

Her best friend’s voice stays gentle.

“It’s Kris,” she says.


End file.
